I watched Charlie Rose interview Larry Ellison on Saturday night. Ellison is the CEO of Oracle, which apparently is a huge presence in what they call "enterprise software," the meaning of which is somewhat beyond my humble understanding of computer technology. At any rate, in the field of computer technology, he is one of the pioneers and he has become one of the five or six richest men in the world...worth over $35 billion according to the estimates of the publications that know about such things...and at least to the larger extent, his wealth is legitimate--what I call natural wealth. He has become rich by doing things that benefit society technologically, and our productivity as a nation--by productivity I don't mean the output of the average worker but rather the advance of our species toward a higher evolutionary state--has been enhanced by his efforts. Concisely put, I think he has earned his money as legitimately as such amounts can be earned. But after watching the interview for awhile it occurred to me that either his personal philosophy made it possible for him to do the things necessary to enrich himself or his riches precipitated a personal philosophy that serves him and people like him. But either way, he is not one of us, and I don't think he shares interests with the population at large, which begs a question: are rich people different from the rest of us, and can we trust them to be as much in control of our society as we have allowed them to become.
Despite the Republican promotion of an Ayn Randian kind of economic Darwinism, there are many who still wonder, as I do, if we are truly benefited by the oligarchic control of our world by our economic giants. To be specific, I am forced to wonder whether Ellison, Gates, Buffett, Forbes and the rest can even identify what serves us all in the larger social sense, and thus tailor their enterprises to not only make money for them, but to enhance the lives of the great mass of people at large. And that ability, or the lack thereof is significant because if they cannot identify what we want, but more importantly what we need, they cannot possibly facilitate its creation except serendipitously, and that kind of generalized luck just hasn't been evinced by the efforts of big business to date. Of course we have all benefited from various forms of technological change that has made certain individuals rich, but in general we pay a price in the form of the actual autonomy that we no longer enjoy. We are subject to high prices for various things we have come to need because those with money control how much we pay, and the list of such things includes everything from gasoline to antibiotics, and I think the rich are aware of that. In Gates' case for example, he has created the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and he goes about touting the efforts of the foundation, which is predominantly controlled by him and his wife. But despite his apparent altruism and philanthropy, he continues to get richer, and not by virtue of anything he does. He wanted to find a way to preserve vaccines and other medicines in tropical climates--certainly a magnanimous goal--so he offered a prize for anyone who could create a practical system capable of keeping drugs cold without external power, and one was created, but Gates only contribution was $1 million reward...a pittance, if that, in the total scheme of things in Bill Gates' world. Ellison likewise has his foundation, which focuses on diseases of aging. They all unctuously cloak themselves in magnanimity by pursuing their interests in what look like profoundly public spirited ways, but do they wield their power beneficially overall? That is what interested me about Ellison. In much of what he said, he made it clear that the answer is no.
For example, he isn't concerned about what the NSA has done in the area of collection of personal data, largely from companies that use his software or other software like it: Google, Microsoft, Facebook and their ilk. He says, and rightly so, that we already give up our privacy every time we apply for a credit card, but he goes on to argue that therefore, it makes no difference if the NSA gets and keeps what we give away anyway since we give it away voluntarily. But that is just the glaze on the problem that such data collection represents. It is true that we give away a great deal of information in exchange for the convenience of shopping with a credit card, but we do so voluntarily, and only for that purpose, not for it to be passed along. Further, we give up much more information through the use by various vendors of software like that which Ellison sells, without ever knowing we have done so, and unlike when we apply for credit cards, internet goods and service providers don't ask us if we want to share it with them...and everyone else they want to sell it to, much less the NSA. Ellison is one of those who think that civil liberty is something that no one needs unless he has something to hide: an easy position to take if you are in control of the collection and use of that data, but not such a comfortable notion if you are just an ordinary person. And misuse of such information has occurred; remember Richard Nixon and his enemies list, which resulted in audits of people whose opinions Nixon didn't like. Remember Manzanar--the concentration camp on American soil for Americans of Japanese extraction--and ask yourself if you are sure that you want the government to be able to identify you by the friends you keep or by your ancestry. And most obviously, remember Senator Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee and all the people whose lives they ruined because McCarthy and his cadre didn't like their politics, and ask yourself how much you want the government to have access to with regard to what you think and what you say and to whom. Overall, the government has not always abided by the rules we set for it in our constitution, and Ellison's willingness to trust it is largely a function of his being beyond its reach by virtue of his wealth, but even more prominently it is a function of the fact that he sells the tools by which that information is accumulated. Given the power that inures to him simply by virtue of what he owns and controls, an opinion like his may be hazardous to the rest of us. Compound Ellison's potential for malefaction with the fact that Microsoft too collects data every time Windows boots up on your laptop as does Facebook every time you check your account to see who has written what on your "wall." And whether you realize it or not, all kinds of web sites place cookies and slices and add-ons on your machine, not to mention the nefarious among us who install trackers, beacons and malware on it without ever letting us know. With a subpoena, the NSA can get that information as can others with whom those surreptitiously placing their tools on your computer wish to share it.
So in the final analysis, I have to conclude that the threat to our liberty isn't just the government's surveillance of our every keystroke. That is something that happens only because people like Larry Ellison make it possible, and corporations from Sears to Samsung use the implements that those people provide. The real danger is that business has become so intrusive that no one is ever really alone anymore because someone is always watching. Mind you, I don't have anything to hide, but it makes me uncomfortable anyway...and so does Larry Ellison.
Your friend,
Mike
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